NFL
By Bill Carroll
Elly De La Cruz is clearly and obviously an athlete. Even if you had no clue as to his identity and his current status as one of Major League Baseball’s most intoxicating talents, it is unmistakable that he is an athlete. At 6’5″ 200, a person might guess that he was a guard in basketball, a high-jumper in track in field, a wide receiver in football, all are equally possible based on his lean, but explosive and powerful frame, which enables him to play with such agility, ebullience, speed, and strength.
While he could likely could have succeeded at an elite level in multiple sports, the native of Sabana Grande de Boyá, Dominican Republic, fell deeply in love with his island home’s number one sport, el juego de béisbol. While still a boy, he showed evidence of his speed and was able to switch hit with a buggy-whip for a right arm.He began his professional career playing for the DSL Reds rookie affiliate team. Only 16 years old at the time of his signing, he was already 6’2″ but only weighed a wispy 150, on July 2, 2018, when Elly De La Cruz signed with the Cincinnati Reds.
All of his five tools were clearly on display from the beginning of his career, but his most outstanding quality is his exceptional speed. Per Marshall Kramsky of WCPO in Cincinnati: “According to statcast, his sprint speed has gotten as fast as 30.8 ft/s (fastest in baseball by .4 ft/s this season).
Billy Hamilton’s fastest sprint speed in a season was 30.2 ft/s in 2016 & 2017. Baseball wise, it’s incredible. #Reds @WCPO.”
By way of comparison Usain Bolt has been clocked at 34.19 feet per second and roughly 27.5 miles per hour, in his world record of 9.58 in the 100 meter dash.
When he hit for the cycle, Elly De La Cruz was just 21 years, 163 days old. MLB.com legendary notes collector, Sarah Langs, [who was recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis AKA Lou Gehrig’s Disease, please keep her in your thoughts] posted that, in Major League history the only four younger players who have hit for a cycle are: Mel Ott in 1929 (20 years, 75 days), Clifton Earl Heathcote (20 years, 140 days), Arky Vaughan in 1933 (21 years, 107 days) and César Cedeño in 1972 (21 years, 159 days).
Elly De La Cruz was exceptional not only because did something that has only happened 343 times in history, with Curry Foley achieving the feat for the first time in 1882, Elly De La Cruz also drove in four runs and stole a base. According to STATS Inc., he’s the first player to accomplish that while batting for the cycle since 1920, when RBIs became an official statistic. However, the way he did what he did was as, or perhaps even more, compelling than what he did.
Since his debut June 6, 2023, Elly De La Cruz has already stacked an impressive array of accomplishments. Elly De La Cruz’s home-to-third time (10.83 seconds) was the fastest in baseball this season. He hit a 458-foot home run in his first game! He smote a pelota that was timed off of his bat at 114.8 mph and landed in the last rows of the right-field stands at Great American Ball Park.
Also, the Reds were 27-33 when he was called up from the Triple-A Louisville Bats, they are now 39-29, they have won 20 of their last 24 games, 8-2 in the last 10 games and have won 5 straight. Is all of that due to Elly De La Cruz? No, but Elly De La Cruz has given the team a boost of productivity, passion and pure talent that makes them a threat to be a tough problem to solve in the playoffs.
As a team, the Reds have TJ Friedl and Elly De La Cruz both batting above .300, with Elly De La Cruz tops at .325 and Friedl at .309, three players have double-digit home runs. Spencer Steer is setting the pace with 14 and he and Jake Fraley both have 51 RBI, tied for the team lead. Another revelation on the team is Matt McLain, a 23-year-old shortstop that is so impressive that lately, Elly De La Cruz has been playing third base. A former UCLA Bruin, McLain was the 17th overall pick of the 2021 Major League Amateur Draft. He is a slick fielder and he’s batting .295, with seven home runs, 29 Runs Batted In, an OPS% of .880 and five stolen bases.
The Reds boast several budding studs on a roster that, other than 39-year-old Joey Votto at $25,000,000 and Kevin Newman who makes $2,662,000, yearly, are all under contract making 2.5 Million dollars or less. In fact the Cincinnati Reds’ entire pitching staff combined, makes $12,216,786 in 2023. A great example of their extraordinary bang for the buck ratio, is pitcher, Ian Philip Gibaut. The husky Texan on now with his sixth organization, is having a career year with a 8-1 record, a 3.46 ERA, a WHIP of 1.3 and batters are averaging .240 against him. He has an annual salary of $730,000.
Is any of this sustainable, who knows? For me the larger question is, given his outsized talent, but playing in a smaller market and being a Spanish speaker, will there by a focus on making him a household name? Baseball is having a current bumper crop of young and exciting players, however as with Shohei Ohtani, who is doing things that few believed possible, some are held back by the language barrier.
This is not the case with Ohtani’s teammate Mike Trout. Tout is in year 13 of what is assuredly a Hall of Fame career, despite the fact that he has already surpassed hall of fame members like Ralph Kiner and ‘Duke’ Snider, he is no more recognizable to sports casual fans than is Charles Wade Barkley, who retired from the NBA in April 19, 2000.
It would be unthinkable for a top five NBA or NFL player to be no more recognized than even the most famous announcer in any sport. Baseball has yet another chance to get it right with Elly De La Cruz, but will they?
